The world struggles with debt, and economists see dollar signs, what do think is the solution to the problem at hand.

First off, we the citizens of the world are not to blame for debt crisis, its the policy makers and breakers. Now, knowing that, what's the solution. Do we need better leadership, do we need concrete policy of which the public must be involved in, do we need more innovation? do we need a stricter code of ethics for politicians and economists ,do we need laws against greed in the market place. State your thoughts and solutions.

Apr 26 2012:
I disagree that you give us citizens a pass on the debt crisis. If the people were not demanding services that they did not want to pay for there would not be a debt problem. If the people did not want to retire early with big pensions there would not be a debt problem. If the people did not want to have what everyone else had there would not be a debt problem.

For a problem to be solved all parties involved must be considered, or the solution will not be valid and make matters worse.

The people are supposed to be the leadership, but, in the United States, the people have defered their responsibilities over to the government. The citizens caused the problem in the United States by not being responsible for themselves. This gave the government the power to do whatever they wanted. They only have to dangle the carrot of hope in front of them to keep the power the people gave up long ago.

May 1 2012:
You're technically right, insomuch as it is true that the situation we're in couldn't have been achieved without an element of mass-ignorance and indifference but it cannot be denied we spend our entire lives navigating through a system which is mindbogglingly efficient at fabricating perceived needs and desires.

May 1 2012:
Bob, you are exactly right about the "perceived" needs. The industrialization of compassion and security has run rampant. The reason I believe it has gotten out of control is because the federal government (PRINTED MONEY) funds way too much of what localities should be paying for themselves (LOCALITIES CANNOT PRINT MONEY). If the locality can afford it that is fine (LOCAL TAXES that the people approve), otherwise they don't have the "service" at all. We cannot mix socialistic collective policies in a capitalist system and expect it to work even reasonably well. It is much harder to prove you have a good product when people are paying for it with their own money which they had to work hard for.

Apr 29 2012:
Well said Mr.Peter,
I personally believe the root cause seems to be lack of communication due to cultural differences and the way media projects a problem. They say there is a problem and they put a big question mark for us to decide on what to do next ..We as citizens of the world need to be more optimistic and proactive to understand the problem at hand and come up with solutions .
Regards,
Bharath

Apr 27 2012:
Education. I think we need to be more drastic about the need of education. As Krisztian said policy makers are elected democratically. Everyone is free to choose who is going to represent them on the Government. Sometimes people are manipulated by politicians because they don't have the education to understand what's going on. Sadly politics and the economics crisis are too complicated to just judge them by the results. Remember that there is not 1 politician that is on the power that does not have the support of a certain amount of people.

May 1 2012:
Indeed a high level of education globally is paramount to the success of our species but I think it's important that we look into revising exactly how it is that "our elected representatives" represent our needs and desires. Besides, if we ever hope to find a way of exploiting this planet in such a way that a handful billions of people can co-exist on it under decent conditions, we're going to have to figure out a system wherein the needs and desires of, but also the expectations on, local communities are all addressed on equal terms, regardless of geography.

Apr 26 2012:
The optimal solution would be if we organized one of those global Facebook events (you know, Turn Your Lights Off Day or Don't Go to School Day or whatever) where, on a specific day, everyone just stopped believing in money. If enough people joined in, every bank in on the planet would be instantly out of business. All governments would collapse. There'd be anarchy and a lot of chaos, fear, death, destruction and general brouhaha but it'd give us a clean slate from which to build something new and better.

Apr 26 2012:
The present currency is paper with lower and lower credit.
Obama is probably a very good leader who stopped things from being worse but the root is the currency itself and how those 1% people control people's behaviors through their own ways.
If we could go back to the days when we use gold/silver/copper as currency it will be better.

Apr 26 2012:
In reality the world can't struggle with dept. If it weren't for the fact that commodity markets and the stock exchange allow people to trade the same things back and forth at ever increasing prices creating "money" that doesn't exist the amount of money in the world would be a constant. It would just move around like energy. The impact on regular people occurs when the banks lend this non-existant money to some one and they use it to by a real house. Then the money disappears because it didn't exist in the first place. A dollar is supposed to be a voucher that you use to represent something you have that has material value. What we call money today has become much more ethereal. Try comparing the material assets of Bill Gates with his paper assets.

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